September 24, 2018

Brett Goes To College

Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer hit the talk shows this morning to defend the piece but it clearly is a break from their usual pattern of multiple victims and multiple allegations, and the contemporaneous corrobaration is very light. To be fair, they also run all manner of strong denials. The real impetus here seems to be that someone contacted the Senate Democratic staffers with this story, rumors were swirling, staffers and other media were investigation, and the confirmation clock was ticking.

Two details that jumped out at me but may get less attention:

An ex-roomie of Kavanaugh's can not confirm this story but has some harsh words about Kavanaugh (my emphasis):

Several other classmates said that they believed Ramirez to be credible and honest, and vouched for her integrity. James Roche was roommates with Kavanaugh at the time of the alleged incident and is now the C.E.O. of a software company in San Francisco. “Debbie and I became close friends shortly after we both arrived at Yale,” he said. “She stood out as being exceptionally honest and gentle. I cannot imagine her making this up.” He said that he never witnessed Kavanaugh engage in any sexual misconduct, but did recall him being “frequently, incoherently drunk.”

And on that hard-drinking theme, we are treated to several examples of the deplorable treatment of drunken young women by drunken young men, centered around Mark Judge specifically of Georgetown Prep boys generally. Left unremarked - of all the alleged incidents on the table, only one involves a sober woman - that would be Dr. Ford.

Obviously, if she had been drinking that does not give anyone the right to assault her. However, Dr. Ford told the WaPo she had just one beer the night of her trauma and hazy memory. PTSD is one explanation of her poor memory, but alcohol is another. Beyond that, guessing at her alcohol use gives us a guess about her credibility.

Well. It's obviously open season on Kavanaugh's drinking habits as a young man. Dr. Ford will remain off limits to the journalists of the MeToo era for obvious reasons. Are likely to learn more this week as this circus passes by? I have learned one thing - two weeks ago I was embarrassed for America by the Senate hearing antics of Cory "I m Spartacus" Booker and Kamala "Guess the name of the lawyer I'm thinking of" Harris. Now, those are the good old days.

MORE: The Times was digging and came up empty. Since these are the folks who ran the LONG front-page McCain piece which TOTALLY WAS NOT alleging an improper affair with a female lobbyist, the dirt here must have been scarce indeed.

Judge Kavanaugh’s prospects were further clouded on Sunday when The New Yorker reported on a new allegation of sexual impropriety: A woman who went to Yale with Judge Kavanaugh said that, during a drunken dormitory party their freshman year, he exposed himself to her, thrust his penis into her face and caused her to touch it without her consent.

In a statement, Judge Kavanaugh denied the allegation from the woman, Deborah Ramirez, and called it “a smear, plain and simple.” The New Yorker did not confirm with other eyewitnesses that Judge Kavanaugh was at the party.

The Times had interviewed several dozen people over the past week in an attempt to corroborate her story, and could find no one with firsthand knowledge. Ms. Ramirez herself contacted former Yale classmates asking if they recalled the incident and told some of them that she could not be certain Mr. Kavanaugh was the one who exposed himself.

Ferrell: Worse than that Lou, Speaker Ryan has guilty knowledge of all of this, and he is as bad in my opinion as Mr Rosenstein, because he is sitting on top of corrupt, criminal activity, and he is suppressing and obstructing the Freedom Caucus members who went to get that information out...he has guilty knowledge of all of this stuff...the good news is that through Court Process, through our litigation, Judicial Watch will uncover those records long before Mr Goodlatte or anybody else on the Hill ever sees them.

Lou Continues apoplectic, but wryly smiles because he knows thats the truth:)

She spent almost every day that summer at this country club presumably practicing her swimming and diving. I find that statement interesting.

She doesn't mention socializing with this group that included "Brett", yet her causal reference to him indicates a certain degree of familiarity.

She went to this, one would assume unsupervised, party for which she provides no place, date or time. She only had one beer.

That's as definitive as she gets in her written statement about this life altering event.

For the most part, her statement is a recitation of her concerns about Kavanaugh receiving a nomination to the Supreme Court. Frankly, it sounds as if she was following his career with great interest, but didn't feel compelled to speak up until now. In fact, she didn't feel compelled to speak up now at all. She thought she could scuttle his nomination by tossing a letter over the transom to a congresswoman.

The rest of the statement is just a recitation of the poor woman's woes. I'm not sure she ever explained why she and her husband went into therapy.

This is a target rich environment for any Republican on that Committee to pursue if they have the fortitude to do so.

Daddy could you email that pic to Murkowski’s office and let her know that it is all over the internet (it is). I doubt she wants her Alaskan constituents to see it and then know how she allowed herself to be bullied into voting no by a California senator.

We really need to do something about term limits. ChiFi is 85, Hatch is 84(?), Leahy is (83?) Grassley is (82?). Now maybe back in the founders day, the average life span was into the 60's and they didn't consider our medical advancements, but something needs to be done. I don't think they are incapable but come on their faculties are impaired, just watch the way they talk.

No one over 75 can serve in Congress, or something like that.

Of course the negative there is we are being run by a bunch of weed smoking, flag burning ex-hippies from Haight-Ashbury, or are they too young for that?

"The group said none of them recall meeting an individual named Julie Swetnick."

Golly,

Julie was even more invisible than Barrack Obama was at Columbia.

NOBODY REMEMBERS OBAMA AT COLUMBIA !!!!!!!

Looking for evidence of Obama’s past, Fox News contacted 400 Columbia University students from the period when Obama claims to have been there, but none remembered him.

Wayne Allyn Root was, like Obama, a political science major at Columbia who also graduated in 1983. In 2008, Root says of Obama, “I don’t know a single person at Columbia that knew him, and they all know me. I don’t have a classmate who ever knew Barack Obama at Columbia. Ever! Nobody recalls him. I’m not exaggerating, I’m not kidding.

Good point. Lets check out the haunts. Mine when I was in college was both Frisch's Big Boy and White Castle. You can tell a lot about a person from the burgers they order and eat. At Big Boy, it was car service on skates. Ask those girls how many times they were hit up by future judges, congressman, senators, supreme court justices, et. al.

White Castle people are different. They save their money for beer, and use the left over change for a bag of oringinal sliders. Too blasted to do anything but eat.

Avenetti and Sweathog aren't even worth refuting. The GOP probably should subpoena them both. Might make Kavanaugh wait a bit but it would probably mean three or four more Senators and 10-15 reps after people watched the Dems not knowing how to react to the little porn monster they cheered on or they simply didn't even show up.

It's interesting to compare Blasey-Ford's recollections of The Summer of '82 with Brett Kavanaugh's calendar for that same period of time.

Perhaps I'm only reading this into her statement, but she implies that she became acquainted with "Brett" and his friends while hanging around the pool at the country club that summer. Kavanaugh's calendar, on the other hand, shows that his summertime activities were quite different from hers. He was off to camp; he traveled to this friend's home for one weekend and to another friend for another weekend.

He spent the week at the beach. He was focused on his studies and the next step in his education.

If this calendar typifies the young Kavanaugh's activities, whether it was 1982 or any other year, it doesn't match with the indolent sort of summer Blasey-Ford's describes. Not even close.

New: A decade ago, Julie Swetnick made a sexual harassment complaint against her former employer, New York Life Insurance. Representing her was the firm run by Debra Katz, who now reps Christine Blasey Ford. She was ultimately paid a financial settlement. https://t.co/goobX4fivLpic.twitter.com/UJ1LFRRc6M

In the close up DiFi looks angry and all business and that makes sense to me because if she fails without taking out Kavenaugh she will have totally destroyed her image of integrity for nothing---this is totally personal to her---It's not about Ford at all, its about DiFi.

Murkowski, with eyes closed, appears subordinate and apologetic to DiFi, who most definitely has her eyes wide open and locked firmly on Murkowski's closed eyes. DiFi looks like a Marine Drill Instructor or more properly a Mob Boss demanding an answer. She is angry but most definitely not afraid of Murkowski in the slightest.

“Right after I broke up with her, she was threatening my family, threatening my wife and threatening to do harm to my baby at that time,” Vinneccy said in a telephone interview with POLITICO. "I know a lot about her.”

Do they have Ford's emails? I doubt it. I'm guessing the "I was hacked!" is a preemptive strike to discourage investigators from demanding the emails. But what it does is draw attention to them, as in "Pay no attention to that elephant in the room!"

Now David (last name escapes) girlfriend, was like that, she was part of a election scheme, in the 2010 election, she high tailed to Nicaragua, where the authorities remember his part in aiding the contras

The ugliness on DIFI’s face is a reflection of the ugliness within.
She knows what she is doing is wrong.
When this blows up, she will be tagged with it.
If Murkowski votes no I want daddy to run against her for the Senate.